Thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't really do the thing that I am hoping to do with limiting spells in the first place.
D&D 5E Spell Rarities
ph0rk
Friendship is Magic, and Magic is Heresy.
That, and it is much harder to do without a system overhaul.
That same pinch of bat guano can make an 8d6 or 14d6 fireball, after all, it's all about how much arcane power the use puts into it, and that's not something easy to regulate in-system.
So my question is the same for all those low/restrictive magic setting, what is appealing to play a wizard in such setting?
ph0rk
Friendship is Magic, and Magic is Heresy.
The players aren't forced to play a wizard, are they?
1) Crime-Wizards who trade in banned magics are freaking COOL. All the coolness of a Rogue, plus quests to find specific spells and the ability to cast them and piss off all the soldiers/priests/nobles in the process!
2) To tell a tale of Liberation. To start out constrained and burst free of constraint is a pretty powerful story.
3) You're only gonna get, like, 4 spells to start with, plus a couple of cantrips, so what does it -really- matter at level 1 when you're gonna have the full gamut available at level 9?
My own instinct is to look at every spell as though it was a technology in our world.
If it would be something that the army/police would have access to for their use of protecting the populace, then it'd be regulated (and thus uncommon / rare). So most direct-damage spells would not be accessible to most people because you'd need to be licences to control such magic. Also, anything that would restrict the functionality of another person would also be locked up. So Charm Person? No way... that would be restricted and made Very Rare because society couldn't function if mind-control was in the hands of the entire society.
Any spell you'd look at and say "Any functioning society that had this capability for the betterment of the people would make this magic as accessible and used as much as possible." Looking at it from the perspective of the Eberron dragonmarked houses would be a good first thought. So spells that helped a person or kept them safe would made as Common as possible. Cantrips like Mending would be found all over because of how useful it is. Comprehend Languages would be made accessible to everyone. Create or Destroy Water, Feather Fall, Cure Wounds, Purify Food and Drink, Speak With Animals, Unseen Servant... these are all magics that once society learned how to do them... they'd proliferate its instruction and distribution until everybody had it.
Once the Romans built the first aqueduct to distribute fresh water to their people, they didn't cordon off this capability and only keep it in the hands of the few... they made the water accessible to everyone. Plus... they then continued their scientific work to improve the technology to make it better, faster, safer, cleaner, and even more distributable.
Which makes the idea in D&D that magic is only in the hands of a select few wizards and is not readably available to the whole of society really a dumb trope in my opinion. Because magic is like technology... once its application is learned and people realize just how much better it is to have... society will start teaching everyone how to use it and how to advance it... at the very minimum to make money off of if nothing else. This is one of the things that Eberron really got right.
If it would be something that the army/police would have access to for their use of protecting the populace, then it'd be regulated (and thus uncommon / rare). So most direct-damage spells would not be accessible to most people because you'd need to be licences to control such magic. Also, anything that would restrict the functionality of another person would also be locked up. So Charm Person? No way... that would be restricted and made Very Rare because society couldn't function if mind-control was in the hands of the entire society.
Any spell you'd look at and say "Any functioning society that had this capability for the betterment of the people would make this magic as accessible and used as much as possible." Looking at it from the perspective of the Eberron dragonmarked houses would be a good first thought. So spells that helped a person or kept them safe would made as Common as possible. Cantrips like Mending would be found all over because of how useful it is. Comprehend Languages would be made accessible to everyone. Create or Destroy Water, Feather Fall, Cure Wounds, Purify Food and Drink, Speak With Animals, Unseen Servant... these are all magics that once society learned how to do them... they'd proliferate its instruction and distribution until everybody had it.
Once the Romans built the first aqueduct to distribute fresh water to their people, they didn't cordon off this capability and only keep it in the hands of the few... they made the water accessible to everyone. Plus... they then continued their scientific work to improve the technology to make it better, faster, safer, cleaner, and even more distributable.
Which makes the idea in D&D that magic is only in the hands of a select few wizards and is not readably available to the whole of society really a dumb trope in my opinion. Because magic is like technology... once its application is learned and people realize just how much better it is to have... society will start teaching everyone how to use it and how to advance it... at the very minimum to make money off of if nothing else. This is one of the things that Eberron really got right.
@DEFCON 1 Eberron also regulated the crap out of magic.
Not only did they treat magic as a weapon, they also made it outright -illegal- to cast spells that were associated with specific houses. Heroes' Feast in a city? House Ghallanda is coming for you and they will chuck you in jail and throw away the key! And use of Fire Magics that caused damages outside of your target (Such as setting a building on fire with Burning Hands which explicitly states it can start fires) was punished -severely-.
Not only did they treat magic as a weapon, they also made it outright -illegal- to cast spells that were associated with specific houses. Heroes' Feast in a city? House Ghallanda is coming for you and they will chuck you in jail and throw away the key! And use of Fire Magics that caused damages outside of your target (Such as setting a building on fire with Burning Hands which explicitly states it can start fires) was punished -severely-.
Yep... that's what Corporate Lobbyists can do for you! Dragonmark House lawyers go to the seats of the Five Nations and make sure their companies keep a monopoly on certain magics.
It's something I really like as a world-building evolution, because it makes too much sense. And in fact is also the reason why I DON'T like the one part of Eberron that runs counter to it-- unfortunately also being the most important part of D&D-- that Player Characters can level up and replicate all this magic that the Dragonmark houses control and make money from.
It pulls PCs out of the world when they can go "adventuring" and end up acquiring the exact same abilities that the dragonmarked houses have and kept and nurtured and made giant corporations from for centuries. And it also means that the PCs during play have little need to GO to any of the dragonmarked houses for help, because the party probably already has all the magic at their disposal that they would ordinarily only be able to get from them.
To paraphrase Brennan Lee Mulligan:
D&D's biggest narrative problem isn't that magic is rare. It's that magic comes from murder. It's a world where kids should go to Hogwarts not to study, but to get to class and then the teacher just says "Alright. Today we're going to be killing goblins. Everyone prepare yourselves and get out your wands!" and then they just -unleash- like 10-15 captive goblins into the classroom for the kids to Murder for XP.
